


The Lion at the End of the Tunnel

by Outworld



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Outer Space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2018-10-11 14:37:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10467351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Outworld/pseuds/Outworld
Summary: Pidge bites off more than she can chew in an act of grand space piracy gone wrong. Aboard a dying starship with few options, she's starting to think this might be her last mistake until she discovers a certain idiot has done something very stupid.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As a first-time fanfic author, I welcome any criticism. If things seem excessively, well, "tech-porny" or verbose, please let me know. I live in the harder side of sci-fi so I'm well aware of that tendency, but I thought it'd be fun to inject a bit of that into the VLD universe, especially with Pidge as a viewpoint character.
> 
> Thank you for reading.

Pidge staggered into a purple-lit corridor, closing the blast door behind her and finally taking a moment to think and breathe. Subverting the AI core of a Galra dreadnought had gone somewhat more smoothly in the planning phase. Panting, she leaned against the wall and took stock.

The ship? Doomed. Apparently the Galra were properly paranoid about their own heavily automated ships being turned against them; their AIs were programmed to eagerly lobotomize themselves should the need arise. The thing detected her attack immediately, sent her a defiant “Vrepit sa!” and fried itself, leaving every regulated system on the ship to go wild and the engine reactor to melt down. Raging plasma fires spread quickly, barely kept at bay by Pidge’s new army of Galra robots abandoned by the suicidal AI.

Her escape route, the Green Lion? Presumably drifting in space near the other Paladins at the ambush site, where the uncharacteristically cautious Galra captain had jumped the ship back into hyperspace with Pidge still on board.

Her bayard? Still awesome, maybe a little more well-used now.

And her armor? Pidge quickly ran her hands over most of its surface.

“Not so awesome,” she said to no one. The body had eaten a few lasers but was mostly functional, minus the smoldering wreckage of her jetpack, while her helmet visor sported a rifle buttstock-sized hole. The evacuating Galra crew had not been so distracted as to ignore her on the way out. What remained of the HUD blared a warning:

 

“ **HELMET INTEGRITY FAILURE**

**MASK MATERIALIZATION OFFLINE”**

 

“Great,” she sighed, running a finger across the jagged edge. “I should have bugged out the minute things went wrong. Stupid!” She began to pace across the hallway, mind running a mile a minute to no avail. “I could head for the hangar and hope there’s still a fighter left, but those things don’t have hyperdrives so I’d be stuck in space, and I don’t know how long their life support lasts but I can assume at least three or four cubic meters of air inside so that gives me about an hour but I’d only have a Galra transponder so I–“

“Pidge? Pidge! Aww c’mon, I thought it was working this time!”

Pidge froze in place. Lance’s voice, distorted but unmistakable, was coming through her helmet.

“Wha– _Lance!?”_ she said and pressed down her helmet as though it would help. “Where are you? How did you get out here?”

“Buddy, you’re OK!” he yelled into her ears. “I saw the cruiser’s engines heating up, so I just had Blue dig in with the ol’ claws and we went for the _craziest_ ride! Messed her systems up good but I think we’re back in business now.” He sounded quite proud of himself. He felt no need to mention that he had done nothing but sit in the cockpit and coo encouragingly to it while it self-repaired.

Pidge couldn’t decide whether to be amazed or horrified. She settled on angry. “You _rode_ the ship through hyperspace? You idiot! Do you have any idea what could’ve happened?”

“…No?”

She clanked her forehead against the metal wall in exasperation. “Uhg, whatever! I don’t have time to explain how stupidly lucky you are, so just pick me up in the hangar,” she said.

“Uhh, that hangar? ‘Cause it looks a little like the aftermath of dinner at my dad’s place,” Lance said.

“What?”

“It’s spewing fire, Pidge. That goes for most of the ship, actually. Come on, just find a hole and jump out, no big deal, done it before! There are kind of a lot of them now. What did you _do_ to this thing anyway?”

“Oh, that’s… more of a problem than it would normally be,” Pidge said with a glance to her shattered visor, becoming more and more aware of a ball of fear in her chest. If the fires from the engineering section had spread so far forward, then she was rapidly running out of options. “Umm, Lance, my helmet is busted. Like, all the way busted. I can’t.”

Lance opened his channel but didn’t speak, as though carefully mulling over his next words.

“I _see_ ,” he said sagely.

Pidge could almost see his fingers steepled beneath his chin and couldn’t help but smile despite herself.

 

* * *

 

“Arrg, this one’s gone too!” she said, kicking the sealed door of yet another empty escape pod launch tube. “What do you see out there?”

“Nothing… Nothing yet, I mean!” Lance said. The Blue Lion smoothly jetted left and right, scanning across the dreadnought’s purple hull, searching for a shuttle bay or docked escape pod or _anything useful_ that wasn’t gushing plasma. “OK, OK, maybe the hangar is still an option!” he said, mustering as much optimism as possible. “I can have Blue ice out the fire, no problem.”

“It’s probably the fighter refueling lines burning, you won’t put those out,” Pidge said. The growing defeat in her voice caused a wrenching feeling in Lance’s chest. “Path’s blocked anyway.”

Lance sent his Lion flitting ever more frantically around the huge ship’s anvil-shaped bow. “Uhhhh, alright, don’t worry, how about–“

“Lance,” Pidge sighed. “Look, this thing is running out of time…” She leaned heavily against the airlock door. “You… need to think about getting to a safe distance.”

“Yeah, _not_ happening.” The sudden steel in his voice almost startled her.

“Just strategically speaking, losing one Paladin versus two Paladins _and_ a Lion isn’t a good–“

“Pidge! Friends don’t let friends explode!” Lance said. The mental calculations Pidge had already started to estimate the yield of the immanent explosion ground to a halt against this unassailable logic. “That’s an _extremely important_ friend rule,” he added. She was too dumbfounded and too touched to respond for a moment, which Lance took to mean he had won. “Besides, I have a new plan that’s at least, like, fifty percent better than exploding. Are you still by that launch tube?”

“Y-yeah?”

“About how long is it?”

Pidge peered through the hatch windows into the long, hexagonal tube. “Umm, probably twenty meters.”

“Great!” he said. Pidge didn’t follow. “Remember the EVA training course at the Garrison?”

“Of course I do and that doesn’t matter because _I don’t have a working spacesuit, idiot._ ”

“Just listen, ok? So, remember that unit we had on vacuum exposure?”

“Yeah, it was the most horrifying class I’ve ever taken! The pictures they… Oh God. You cannot be serious,” Pidge said as she realized where Lance was going with this.

“Oh, come on! With that pre-breathing thing they showed us you could last like, fifteen, twenty seconds out there!”

“Lance, that is insane,” she said, taking a step back from the door.

“Well you can be insane or you can be exploded!” Lance yelled. “Pidge, you have a shot. It’s not like you to give it up,” he said with an uncommon tender concern.

Pidge stood with her head bowed and fists clenched, frustrated with herself. “…I’m scared,” she said quietly.

Lance paused incredulously for a moment, pondering how dumb smart people can be. “Well _duh,_ genius."

Pidge rolled her eyes, the tension suddenly broken. “Uhg, I mean specifically, about this. I think about it more than I should, knowing all the ways a spaceship can fail, what happens to you when it does…”

“Hey, bud, it’s alright. Everybody’s got something like that,” Lance said. “I mean, even me. Every time I leave the Castle, I have to try hard to not think about getting stuck in space. Alone. Forever.”

“Oh. I didn’t know.” Pidge said. “I kind of thought the only thing that really bothered you was Keith.”

“See? Now please get ready to jump into space before that happens for real.”

Pidge felt another distant, rumbling explosion through her feet. “OK! OK…” she said unconvincingly.

“Don’t worry man, I’ll be right here, ready to gallantly rescue you.” The Blue Lion rushed into view at the end of the lanch tube, its enigmatic face peering through at Pidge. Its mouth yawned open, revealing a throat hatch that looked terrifically far away. “You’ll be safely in my arms in no time.”

Pidge leaned to the window and gave the vehicle a scathing glare she dearly hoped Lance could see. “ _That’s_ supposed to motivate me? I think I might take my chances with the explosion now.”

“Just shut up and start breathing!” Lance said sternly. “I’ll talk you through.”

Pidge squared her shoulders and took a long, steadying breath. “Alright, let’s do it.”

 

* * *

 

“In! Two, three, four. Out! Two, three, four…” Lance counted out what he hoped was the correct beat. Pidge took great gulping breaths and exhaled violently on his time, attempting to maximally oxygenate her blood and buy a few more precious seconds of consciousness.

“Alright, switch! Short breaths!” Lance called out. She began panting rapidly and hovered her shaking hand over the door control. “Ready?”

Pidge gave the Lion a sharp nod.

“You got this Pidge! OK, last set, big inhale!”

She braced herself and filled her lungs.

“This is it! Big, big exhale and GO!”

Pidge let out a great, shuddering breath to completely empty her lungs and prevent them rupturing in the vacuum. Gritting her teeth, she slammed her fist into the control panel and a maelstrom of escaping air roared around her as the doors split open, making her wince as her ears popped painfully. The temperature dropped precipitously with the air pressure. By the time she pushed off the edge of the gravity plating and into the weightlessness of the tube, the roar had dulled to a whisper, and then to the most complete, profound silence Pidge had ever experienced. The sound of her galloping heart and the blood rushing through her head seemed thunderous.

_Two seconds…_ she counted.

Given her well-practiced zero-g maneuvering, Pidge’s kickoff was flawless and sent her sailing straight down the smooth walled corridor, and she kept her eyes fixed on the blue glow from the Blue Lion’s mouth even as they began to sting when her tears started to boil.

_Four seconds…_

Pidge was astonished that, so far, the experience was merely intensely uncomfortable. She felt her tongue and nose begin to fizz, but as she approached the midway point making good time, she was exhilarated.

_I can make it!_ she thought. _Six seconds, half-way, just stay focused…_

 

* * *

 

Deep in the immense rear section of the dreadnought, every surface in the engineering control room glowed orange-hot.

The last of Pidge’s hacked Galra robots calmly manning their stations had finally died, slumping into the consoles and melting onto the floor. Absent the superhuman hand of the dead AI or the robot operators, the complex web of electromagnetic fields which confined the ship’s antimatter-catylized fusion reactor started to unravel. The pressurized plasma reservoir began to waver and sputter, allowing tiny gaps in the field to release lances of superheated deuterium and pepper the vaulted core chamber with holes before finally collapsing entirely.

In microseconds, a column of incandescent plasma ripped through hundreds of meters of snaking corridors and ducts along the path of least resistance toward space and into the emitter nozzles of the main engines. A gout of stellar fire 8 kilometers long erupted from the starboard engine for a fraction of a second, melting it into white-hot slag. The entire starship lurched forward.

 

* * *

 

The side of the launch tube slammed into Pidge like a two-million ton truck. Her suit’s kinetic sinks barely saving her from instant death, she ping-ponged between the hexagonal walls, leaving her with a ringing concussion and a handful of cracked ribs. Pidge reflexively gasped with the impact and her lungs burned as they attempted to pump nothingness. Spinning violently, she fought against the pain and disorientation to grope for the inset magnetic rails along the walls and regain control of her movement.

_NO! No no no no! Where? How long…?_

At last, her fingers found purchase. Momentum wrenched her arm and tore them away again, sending her drifting away from any handholds, but she’d managed to arrest her spin well enough to function. She twisted her torso to rotate herself despite the protestations of her grinding ribs, searching desperately through her blurred, doubled vision for the Blue Lion’s glow. However, she saw nothing but a stark starfield at the end of the tunnel.

_He got… thrown off? Oh God, Lance, help…_

Pidge floated in place and stared into the void for agonizing seconds. Her vision began to tunnel and the pain in her body had started to become distant when the Blue Lion’s face once again rushed into view. The last dregs of Pidge’s wits made a final play as she unhooked her bayard from her belt, aimed as well as she could through her darkening eyes, and loosed its magnetic grapple. The green chevron and its trailing cord zipped off down the tunnel, passed the threshold, and sailed into the Blue Lion’s open jaws.

The grapple clanged uselessly against its entirely non-magnetic hull. At the very brink of unconsciousness, Pidge could feel only a dim sadness.

_Oh… I guess I’m gonna die now._

Barely cognizant, distant thoughts and memories passed her by: a boy with round, over-sized glasses smiled down at her; a gray-haired man beamed at a gleaming spaceship shrouded in vapor; a tall, graceful woman wept in the dark in front of a glowing screen; something she had to do, someone she had to help; friends, gathered around a glowing map of unknown worlds.

Some self-preserving hindbrain reflex compelled her hand to grip a familiar handle.

There was a sudden tug.

 

* * *

 

 

His feet braced against his Lion’s bottom teeth, Lance yanked on Pidge’s grapple hard enough to knock the wind out of himself when her limp body collided with him. He crashed into the Lion’s palate with his arms wrapped tightly around her.

“Blue, NOW!” he screamed.

Its huge jaws snapped shut, its claws retracted, and four foot jets flared into action, carrying them all away from the self-immolating dreadnought at incredible speed. In its fractured bowels, the bottled sun in its reactor tore through its magnetic chains. A miniature star expanded, vaporized the rear half of the ship, and just as quickly imploded, shredding the vast dreadnought’s remains into ribbons and scattering them into space. In the impromptu airlock of the Blue Lion’s closed mouth, sound and gravity finally returned as the chamber pressurized with a rising hiss and gravity plating hummed into life. The both of them thumped onto the floor.

“Pidge!? Pidge! C’mon buddy, I got you, you’re alright,” Lance said desperately, cradling Pidge in his lap. "I'm sorry, that was such a bad idea but it was all I got! And I know this is the sort of situation where I'm supposed to say your real name and it brings you around and stuff but I don't actually know it, so, PIDGE, come on!"

For a terrible moment she was still, then suddenly convulsed and took in a rattling, wheezing gasp.

“Yes! That’s it buddy, you got it, breathe…” Lance’s wavering voice continued to croon assurances and encouragement as she took more painful breaths and opened her bleary, bloodshot eyes. Pidge looked up at him through her shattered visor.

“Hhhh… Lhansh…?” she managed to croak. As oxygen restored her mental faculties, Pidge was able to take note of all the ways in which she felt horrible. Aside from the splitting headache and aching ribs, she could taste and smell nothing but coppery blood from her ruptured capillaries, her vacuum-dried tongue was leathery and cracked, and every inch of skin on her head and neck was developing a purple bruise.

“Hah, yeah,” Lance said, leaning closely over her. “What did I tell you, huh? Safely in my manly, heroic arms in no time!” he crowed, trying to restore his usual bravado for his own sake as much as hers. Pidge still noticed his shaking arms and watery eyes. Ordinarily, Lance’s stupidity would be grounds for retaliation, but since every movement of her torso was agonizing and any snark would be unintelligible, she just allowed herself to curl closer and steadily wheeze into his shoulder. Lance sat quietly, supporting her body and head to allow her to recover and his own heart to slow down.

“Alright, up we go,” he said after a short while and lifted her. The movement caused Pidge to let out a quickly muffled cry of pain. She whimpered softly as he carried her through the throat hatch, a sound Lance decided was completely unnatural and should not be allowed to ever happen again. “Sorry buddy,” he whispered.

“Mmm,” she responded with her eyes screwed shut.

Lance had to crouch down to get them both into the tiny emergency quarters situated in the Blue Lion’s torso, just behind its neck. He was thankful that Pidge was so small, as he didn’t want to imagine the guilt (and later berating once she was better) of dropping her in this condition. He gingerly slid her into the cramped, padded alcove that was supposedly a “bed.”

“Huh, at least _you_ fit in this thing,” he said.

“Mmmf, shuddup,” she mumbled. “Wadder?”

“Huh? Oh! Just a sec!” Lance said and started rummaging through the cabin for a water ration. Pidge weakly grabbed at the bag once he brought it near, which he completely ignored in favor of lightly lifting her head and bringing the plastic straw to her mouth. She halfheartedly rolled her eyes at him and started gulping it down. “Are you… alright?”

Having replaced some of her lost moisture, Pidge spoke normally, albeit raspy and soft. “I’ll be alright,” she said, slightly turning her head to him. “Helmet off, please?”

“Here, don’t move.” Lance tried to jostle her as little as possible in pulling it off her matted head. He rolled the ruined helmet over in his hands. “You weren’t kidding, this thing is _trashed.”_ He looked back to her with an earnest smile that Pidge was pretty sure she’d never seen before. “You did good, man.”

“That was a fiasco. I completely destroyed that ship and if you hadn’t done something incredibly dumb and followed me, I’d be dead.”

“Well good for you that I’m so _dumb,_ then,” Lance said. Pidge chuckled weakly, prompting another wave of racking coughs. “Hey, easy, don’t die now after all that!”

“Uhg, I’m OK. You should… eugh… go see where we are and try to contact the Castle,” she said, bringing her hand up to massage her aching head.

“Uhh, yeah, right,” Lance said, standing up and thumping into the low ceiling. Pidge contained a laugh for fear of more coughing. “I’ll start the transponder. They’ll pick us up in no time!” he said and started toward the cockpit.

“Lance?” Pidge called out, rasping. Lance poked his head back through the door.

“Yeah?”

“I probably have a pretty bad concussion, so once you’re done… could you, umm, stay back here so I don’t fall asleep? I guess… Keep me company?” she said sheepishly.

Lance gave her a somewhat hurt look. “Of course, dude. I wasn’t gonna just leave you back here, c’mon! Be right back.” At this, Pidge made an attempt to smile.

“And Lance?”

“Yeah Pidge?”

“…Thanks,” she said, turning away. “Just… thanks, for all of that.”

“Anytime, bro,” he said with a cocky smile. “S’what I do.”

“Uhg, just go.”

 

* * *

 

Lance fell heavily into his pilot seat, flicking on the Blue Lion’s emergency transponder. He took a moment to lean back wearily and let out a long, uneven breath.

“Hoooooo man,” he said to himself, running his hands through his hair anxiously. “Too close, too close, too close. Way, way too close.”

_You almost got her killed, you hack!_ he thought. Lance let the memories of Pidge floating limp in space and whimpering on the floor punish him for a while as he flipped a few more controls.

_But! She’s OK. We’re gonna get home and put her in that healing tube thing and it’ll all be OK,_ Lance thought, trying to calm himself and relax his completely wired body.

_Except for how you told her to jump into space and almost let her die there. That won’t be OK._

He took another breath and looked out his Lion’s windows into space and his own slight reflection.

“Alright Lance, chin up, lighten the mood. _Pidge_ wants _you_ to keep her company and that’s what you’re good at. Not, y’know, daring rescues and life-or-death decisions under pressure. It’s just as important, just not as… whatever,” he said. His self-assurances rang hollow, but as he always did, he decided to act as if they and everything else were great, carry on, and hope for the best. Lance hopped up from his seat, put on his best nonchalant smirk, and made off back down the neck corridor.

This opportunity wouldn’t go to waste; Pidge was about to have the greatest six-to-twelve hours of quality buddy bonding time of her life.


	2. Bored Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge and Lance enjoy some quality time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: "Hmm, I feel like dialogue is my weakest writing skill."  
> *Writes first chapter that ends with characters trapped in a single room with nothing to do but talk*  
> Me: "Wow, what a good idea! It only took several months of procrastination!"
> 
> Thank you for reading.

 

* * *

 

** exec TransponderEmergency **

** { **

** xpndr.callsign=”VLT.BLU” **

** sig.mode(SOS) **

** sig.encrypt(true) **

** xmt.mode(rhf,rlf,lsr,tldv) **

** xmt.pwr=3.8Gw**

** } **

** //Lance do not change ANY of this! Your callsign is NOT Ghostrider! **

****

** blackbox.rec(true) **

** blackbox.start **

** blackbox.path=V:/System/Storage/Recordings/Internal/ **

* * *

  **< t+00h:04m>**

* * *

 

“Wwwwwwwelcome aboard Blue Air, where I’ll be your charming captain _and_ sexy flight attendant for the– Ooof!” said Lance as he attempted to suavely slide into the room and promptly cracked his head on the ceiling for the second time in five minutes. “Why is this room is so _small…_ It's supposed to be for me!” he grumbled, rubbing his forehead.

Pidge, surprised by his entrance, was unable to stifle another chuckle and immediately regretted it. A web of sharp pains flashed across her abdomen as she let out something between a laugh and a pained gasp. When she regained her composure, she found Lance crouched next to the bunk looking concerned.

“Y’know, if a bit of slapstick leaves you like this, I don’t think you’re gonna survive being stuck with me,” he said. His eyes narrowed. “You need one of those goo-pack things.”

“Uhg, I really don’t…” she started, recalling Coran’s disturbing demonstrations of Altean medical equipment, but he’d already opened the cabin’s supply drawer and found a neat stack of silvery vacuum packages. “C’mon man, they’re so…”

“Gross? Yeah, but they work and you need one! Tough!” he said.

“I just don’t like the idea of creepy living goo grafting itself into my bloodstream,” she said. “You know people used to use actual leeches for this sort of thing?”

Lance carefully ripped off a pack’s perforated top. The open bag let out a soft blue glow and a thick medicinal smell that filled the small room.

He briefly peeked inside and grimaced. “Eugh, jeez." The pack began to make soft squelching noises as he set it aside to wake up. “OK, let’s get this armor off, I guess?” he said and knelt at Pidge’s bedside with his hands hovering awkwardly.

Pidge huffed and held out an arm for him. “Fine, fine.” Getting free from her sweat-soaked arm-plates was a relief, but she began to feel a flush of embarrassment as he searched for the chest plate clasps at her shoulders.

 _Seriously?_ she thought to herself angrily. _Get a grip!_

“Just watch your fingers, perv,” Pidge said, maybe more venomously than she’d really intended.

“Watch your bedside manners, nerd,” Lance said. He looked slightly hurt regardless.

“It’s bedside _manner,_ and that doesn’t even make sense,” she started to argue as her armor unlocked and Lance hinged the top clam-shell away. Still, Pidge gingerly propped up her torso on her elbows to allow him to pull the whole thing over her head. She made a point of not wincing at the movement.

Accustomed to wearing nothing more revealing than over-sized sweaters, Pidge was fighting a luminescent blush by the time Lance heedlessly rolled down her armor’s airtight black undersuit to her waist. In only her constricting athletic top, the perpetual coolness inside the Blue Lion raised goosebumps across her upper body.

“Uh, you alright dude?” Lance said, seeing her taut, discomfited expression.

"Just get this over with,” she said while pointedly looking at anything but him.

“Alright, where’s it hurt?” he said, brightening slightly.

 _Aww man, never seen her like this. It must be getting to her,_  he thought, blithely unaware.

“Umm, kind of everywhere. Just, like, poke me until you find something. It’ll be obvious,” she said ruefully.

Lance looked with trepidation over the ugly, blooming bruise covering her entire left side.

“This was your idea, man.”

“OK, OK, hang on,” he said and started prodding. Pidge tensed and clenched her teeth at every touch, but it took only a few moments of painful diagnostics before Lance felt a jagged point and Pidge cried out and slammed her fist into the bunk ceiling, startling him.

“Ooooh, ouch. There it is,” he said sympathetically.

“You _think?_ ” she hissed through gritted teeth.

They both looked on in horror as Lance reached into the goo-pack and pulled out what could only be described as a six-inch square of thin, fluorescent blue raw meat. The living bandage undulated slightly, groping blindly for a surface to attach to.

“Uhg, why does Altean stuff have to be so weird?” Pidge said, watching it sway from Lance’s fingers.

“I dunno, it's sorta cute,” he said. Before Pidge could object to this blatant lie, he gently draped the pseudo-creature across her rib cage. Pidge fought for a moment against the simultaneously ticklish and painful sensation of the thing wriggling across her injury, but in seconds it had attached and begun spreading its tiny filaments through her skin. A rush of cool numbness soothed the worst of her pains and Pidge found herself relaxing her whole body, having not realized she’d been coiled like a spring. Pidge let her eyes close, laid back on her plastic pillow, and sighed deeply, melting onto her bed as the analgesics pumping through her blood quieted her throbbing head as well.

“OK, maybe this isn't so bad.”

Lance sat by her legs on the bed, trying to sound out the inscrutable Altean squiggles on the back of the empty package; he had been surprisingly attentive during Allura’s impromptu lessons. “Hmm, I'm like 80 percent sure this says 'place on forehead in event of head injury,' but it _might_  be the other way around.”

“Very reassuring. It’s helping anyway, so whatever.”

“We could try–” he started, reaching again into the supply cabinet.

“I am definitely not letting that thing poke around in my brain,” she snapped. “Sorry. Thanks. Again. That does help a lot.”

“No prob bud,” he said and tossed the iridescent emergency blanket he’d retrieved on top of her. She cocked her head at him quizzically. “Figured you’re cold now. And you’d rather not, y’know, show off the goods all day.”

Pidge bristled and drew the blanket around her. “Gee, thanks _._ ” Lance just gave her _that_ smirk. The ‘I’m going to say something obnoxious now’ smirk.

“Yeah, I was relieved you were actually wearing something under there, since I thought you might not wear a br– Ack!” Lance’s tactful comment was interrupted by the still-dripping empty goo-pack flying into his face.

 

* * *

**< t+02h:07m>**

* * *

 

“I spy with–”

“Something blue,” Pidge said, dull eyes staring at the ceiling of her bunk.

“Yeah,” Lance said in a similar position lying on the floor.

“Lance, basically everything in this room is blue. It’s the Blue Lion.”

Cool blue running lights along the ceiling illuminated the steely blue metal walls, the blue rubberized floor, the dark blue sleeping cot, and the silvery blue supply cabinet.

He sighed and rolled onto his face. “Uhg, you’re right,” he moaned into the floor. “You’re the genius, entertain us.”

“I Spy isn’t even entertaining in the first place,” she said. Lance heard her shift and looked up to find her peering over the edge of the bunk with her fingers splayed out. “Never have I ever driven a car.”

“Ah-ha! I have!” Lance yelled, sitting up and tucking in a finger.

Pidge was actually rather surprised. “Wait, you have? Where?"

He leaned back with his hands behind his head. “My dad’s really into old-fashioned stuff like that. Back at my grandparents’ place in Cuba he’s got a vintage Honda Civic from 2019. With an actual gas engine and a steering wheel!”

“Woah, _cool!_ ” Pidge said. Lance smiled at the starry-eyed expression she always got when nerding out. “I’ve never even _seen_ an internal combustion car! You actually drove it yourself?”

“Yeah, in the historic neighborhoods they still let people drive on the real roads. Every time we’d visit he'd take me out and teach me. Man, my mom hated it! She thought it was gonna explode or something,” he said. Pidge felt a strange mixture of affection and melancholy hearing him talk about his family so fondly.

“Huh, that’s actually pretty awesome. Your turn,” she said.

Lance tapped his chin for a moment, thinking. “Never have I ever… been arrested!”

“Yup,” she said casually. “You haven’t? I’m surprised.”

“Really? Also, hey!”

Pidge sat up and puffed out her chest proudly. The effect was somewhat diminished by her wincing and favoring her injured side. “The Galaxy Garrison security are technically military police. I was in a cell for about a day after they caught me in Iverson’s office.”

“Wow, you’re real hardcore bud.”

“Heh, yeah, I’m a federal criminal,” she said with a smile. “Hmm, never have I ever… ah, flunked a class.”

“Ehhh, yeah,” he said sheepishly. “I just could not stay awake in Astrophysics. I was there to fly sweet space fighters, not memorize the emission spectrum of argon or whatever!”

Pidge rolled her eyes at him and (gently) flopped down on her stomach. “Uhg, that is such a fighter jock thing to say. Being smart is awesome, you should try it.”

“Naw dude, I’m just a practical kind of guy. That stuff is for people like you and Hunk.”

“Practical, huh?” she said, tapping her fingers. She suddenly propped her head up on her knuckles and gave him a look of utter smugness. “Never have I ever kissed a girl.”

“Oh, you don’t even _know_ , dude!” he said, thrusting his hand out and defiantly tucking in a finger.

“Yeah, right,” she scoffed. “Who?” 

Surprisingly, Lance demurred. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, Pidge.” 

“I would have expected you to never shut up about it, actually.”

“I am a charming and attractive guy and you know it!” he said. “I definitely have. More than once!”

“Mmm-hmm. Your turn,” she said, relenting.

“Never have I ever kissed a guy,” he said and stuck his tongue out petulantly.

She rolled her eyes. “Not even close. Got better things to do.”

“Not being a nerd is awesome, you should try it.”

“Yeah, you’re really selling me on that. And that was a boring one, you can’t just reverse mine,” she said and pushed him away from the bed with a finger between his eyebrows.

Lance waved her hand away. “Too bad, it’s your turn.”

Pidge sat her back up against the bunk wall and returned to her smug smile. “Hmm. Never have I ever slept with someone,” she said as though merely commenting on the weather.

He looked at her like she’d just grown another arm. “Wh- wait, which… How do you mean that?” he said.

“How do _you_ mean that?” she said, pretending at innocence.

“Jeez dude, you’re taking this in a weird direction. For you, at least.”

“Blame the brain trauma. Well?”

Lance stared her down, trying to break that infuriating expression. All he got in return was more smug. Smug half-lidded hazel eyes. Little smug nose and big smug eyebrows. Smug, soft, arched lips.

 _Hoooold on, what? What? OK, being stuck in here might be getting to me,_ he thought.

Finally, he hung his head and held out his tally of fingers, unchanged.

“Interesting answer. I was lying, by the way.”

“You are _so_ full of it!” he said and slapped the floor in exasperation.

Pidge shrugged sarcastically. "What do you mean? Matt and I shared a bed all the time when we were little.”

He flopped backward with a groan. “Come on, dude.”

 _“Your turn,”_ she said in a singsong voice.

Lance looked down his nose at her. “You do realize that telling the truth in stupid drinking games is a sacred duty, right?”

“Your point?” Pidge said, still wearing her mocking grin.

He just closed his eyes and shrugged, as if to absolve himself of responsibility for what was about to happen. “Never have I ever had a crush on Shiro.”

Pidge’s face fell instantly. She looked at him completely aghast. “You– What!?”

Lance wore an expression of supreme smugness almost comparable to hers. “Sacred. Duty.”

Pidge groaned, squirmed under her blanket for a moment, and buried her face in her pillow.

“You’ve already given it up, man.”

“Screw you Lance!” she said and reluctantly tucked in another finger under her thumb.

“Hah, I knew it! Don’t worry, even I had to think about some… _stuff_ the first time I saw that guy with his shirt off. Like, dude _._ ”

Pidge gave him a vaguely affirmative grunt. It was impossible to deny. “You’re going to regret this,” she said.

“Try me.”

“Never have I ever taken Allura’s favorite pillow from the rec room couch and smelled it when I thought no one was looking.”

Lance choked. “I-I think, uh, maybe we’re missing the point of this game a little now.”

“Maybe you should have thought about that,” she said darkly.

“You are ruthless, you know that? And you started it!”

“Don’t flatter me, and it was mutual.”

Another finger down, Lance just shrugged in defeat. “What can I say, her shampoo is _amazing.”_

 

* * *

  **< t+04h:22m>**

* * *

 

Lance languished against the far wall from Pidge, having removed most of his own armor plates and made a nest of spare blankets on the floor. He had been quiet for some time. Uncharacteristically quiet, idly poking at a data pad or fiddling with presets on his bayard whenever she took a glance at him from her bunk. In a torpor of boredom, Pidge briefly considered asking how long he thought they’d have to wait, but decided to spare them both.

“Hey, I was thinking…” he said. She almost jumped at the sudden break in the silence. He’d looked up from his fidgeting with a peculiar expression Pidge couldn’t quite place. Guilt? Embarrassment?

“Congrats. What?” she said, turning onto her side under her surprisingly warm weird space blanket.

“What’s your real name?”

She stared at him for a couple of blinks before managing to respond. “Uh, wow, where did _that_ come from?”

“Oh. Just, y'know, wondering,” he said trying to hide his disappointment. If she didn’t remember, he wasn’t going to try to explain it. “I’ll admit it, it might have taken me a while to realize that ‘Pidge’ probably wasn’t your actual name after your shocking reveal.”

“Hah, seriously? Why didn’t you ask then?”

“Well, everyone just kept saying it, so I figured you had your reasons,” he said, transparently nonchalant.

“I guess I do,” she said. She nestled her head a little further into the crook of her arm, a gesture Lance found inexplicably sad. They were awkwardly quiet for a few more moments.

“Sorry, you don’t–”

“Katie.”

“Huh?”

She sighed a little. “My real name is Katie.”

“Katie,” he repeated robotically.

“Yep. Don’t call me that though, it sounds weird when you say it.”

“…Uh huh,” he said, completely stone-faced. It was as if, for some reason, this one revelation had sent a swarm of new, strange ideas careening through his brain towards his mental picture of "Pidge." Smart, Angry, Awesome, Stubborn, and the like were suddenly joined by Tiny, Cute, Precious, and Adorable in an instant of whirling perspective.

“What?” she said, cocking an eyebrow. She felt a growing suspicion that she’d made a terrible mistake.

Lance let out a single barking laugh. “It’s seriously _Katie?_ It _cannot_ be that cute and girly, holy–” he yelled, flailing ridiculously.

“Why did I tell you that?” Pidge asked herself and slid her palms down her face.

“Because you’re my _buuuuuddy,”_ he crooned, grinning.

“Shut up, Lance.”

“The mighty Green Paladin: Katie!”

_"Shut up, Lance.”_

He gasped in excitement. “Spacey Katie!”

“LANCE I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL–”

 

* * *

  **< t+06h:11m>**

* * *

 

Pidge was sound asleep. Whatever rudimentary mind inhabited the still-pulsing mound of blue bandage-meat, it had apparently decided it was bedtime – doctor’s orders – and knocked her out. From his vantage point across the room, Lance could see the way it had well and truly made itself at home in her skin and wondered what would happen when its work was done. Would it just fall off and die? Dissolve entirely into her body? He nervously hoped that he hadn’t made any mistake in applying it that would leave her with some terrible disfigurement. 

Lance felt increasingly awkward with nothing to look at but Pidge’s occasional sleepy movements and the rise and fall of her stomach, but felt compelled to keep watch in case she made some sign of distress or stopped breathing. Not helped by the way she had kicked away her blanket and sprawled immodestly across her bunk, one leg dangling away by the floor. He had no idea how anyone could possibly be so squirmy while partially anesthetized. Eventually, he had the bright idea to simply walk over and sit beneath her, dragging his blanket nest across and laying his head back against the edge of her cushion so he could just hear her breathing for peace of mind.

_Yep. Aaaaany minute now. Come on guys._

The communicator continued to not ring. Pidge continued to breath softly, wordlessly mumbling occasionally. Lance let his heavy eyelids close and sighed in frustration. “Screw it, I can’t keep this up. It’s bedtime.”

Pidge rolled in her sleep and slapped the back of his head.

“Heh, you too buddy,” he whispered. “G’night.”

He was snoring away at his post by her side within minutes.

 

* * *

  **< t+08h:51m>**

* * *

 

Sitting in someone else’s Lion cockpit felt strange in a number of ways. Pidge was too short for Lance’s adjustments, forcing her to lean far forward to reach the scanner controls. She had to stretch upward to get a good view over the throttle and yoke blocks. Her feet simply didn’t reach the foot pedals. The blue HUD was ugly and green was objectively superior. Strangest was the way the Blue Lion lacked the ineffable connection that was so natural in the Green Lion that she had never noticed before its absence now. She couldn’t feel the strange wordless intelligence beneath its joysticks and consoles or the inexplicable sense of support and power behind her back. She knew that moving its controls would do nothing, despite the Blue Lion being very much online and humming along at about 10 percent of the speed of light.

In the wraparound cockpit screen, a composited camera feed displayed a view Pidge could hardly believe had become entirely routine since leaving Earth: two faraway reddish suns were just now rising from the limb of the nearby planet, covered in desolate white plains which, according to the Lion's scanners, were the remains of a long-vanished ocean. In the distance nearer the binary pair, a bright ringed gas giant bustling with small moons shone in the suns’ light.

She was distracted from the scene outside by a thump from behind down the corridor.

“Ow, wha– Pidge?” Lance groggily called out. “Pidge!” He leapt into the doorway, panic already growing. “Pidge! …Oh,” he said upon seeing her peering out at him from behind the chair.

“Morning,” she said with a jaunty wave, smiling a little at his concern but mostly his disheveled hair. “Sort of, at least. It’s only been a few hours.”

Somewhere in the moment of whiplash between concern and relief, the image of her face framed by the yawning vista of space behind her, her hair glowing with orange light from the waxing desert planet, burned itself into Lance’s brain and made him feel distinctly weird. He collected himself and instinctively smoothed back his cowlicks. “So, feeling better?”

“Yup,” she said and held up what looked like a small square of purple beef jerky. “Little guy finished his job and just sort of shriveled up and fell off while I slept. I felt kind of… sad, for some reason? So I came up here to take a look at the neighborhood.”

“Well as gross and creepy as it was, it did maybe save your life. With my help,” Lance said, walking up to the cockpit and leaning on the side of her chair lazily. “Rest in peace, little gooey.” He looked at her suspiciously. “You _are_ feeling better, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s just tender, and I haven’t been dizzy since waking up. In fact, I’m starving.”

“Oh dude, I am too! How did I not notice that?” he said and darted back into the cabin. He yelled to her from down the hall. “Green food cube or orange food cube?”

“Green, obviously," she replied. She looked over the scanner windows that were open, unable to control them herself. "It looks like that ship panic-jumped into an old Galra mining system, judging by all this junk I’m seeing.”

Lance walked up behind the pilot’s chair and dropped a cube over her head into her lap, gnawing on his own. “We’re in Galra space? Do I need to blow anything up?”

“Nah, this place has been abandoned for at least 3000 years.” Pidge switched into ‘serious business’ mode. “There’s an old solar collector station around one of the suns and a huge helium mine on that gas planet, but they’re totally dead,” she said, pointing out into the screen. “We’re close to making a capture burn to orbit this planet in front of us. I don’t know what the Galra were extracting from it, but whatever they did ruined it. Based on the geology, it used to be over 90 percent ocean and now it’s a giant ball of salt.”

"Hey, we found your long-lost homeworld, Pidge.”

“Lame,” she said and continued without missing a beat. “Basically, nothing in this solar system is habitable and we should just wait here in orbit for a message from the rest of the team.”

“We’re going to go insane,” he said, cupping his face in his hands. “What’s taking so long?”

Pidge sighed and sank into her oversized seat. “I don’t know, I’m worried. Maybe they're still on the run?”

He ruffled her messy hair and enjoyed her annoyed glance. “I’m sure they’re alright. Seriously, if we got away from that clusterquiznack with one Lion between the two of us, they can deal with four plus a giant castle spaceship.”

An alarm flashed on the sensor console. Lance pointed at it triumphantly, yelling “See! Right on time!”

Pidge attempted to bring up the alert, but had to gesture repeatedly at Lance for him to tap it for her. “It’s not a message, moron, it’s a hyperspace jump warning.”

“Warning us that the castle ship is here and we’re about to be rescued?” he said with earnest hope in his eyes.

“No, it’s… Oh. Great. A Galra corvette. It must be investigating the dreadnought’s self-destruct message.”

Lance scoffed. “Oh _nooo,_ what will we _dooo?_ Those things are tiny, what’s it gonna do? I could blow it away without even turning Blue around,” he said, shooting a pair of finger guns at her.

“Yeah, and before you do, it’ll get out a message that one of the Lions of Voltron is _alone in the middle of nowhere_ and half the Galra empire will be here in an hour.”

Lance cringed. “OK, maybe not. Time to bravely run and hide?”

“There’s a large ruin on the planet we can use. They can't have identified us yet, but they definitely know we’re here,” she said and hopped down from the seat. “She’s all yours. I don’t think she likes me anyway,” she said, her eyes a little downcast.

“Don’t worry dude, you’ll be back inside Green’s head in no time,” he said and gave her another barely-tolerated head pat.

Pidge tried to find a comfortable way to sit beside Lance on his armrest while he guided the Blue Lion into re-entry. A small patch of sickly blue-green water and a tiny black dot in the middle of it, their destination, slowly rotated into view on the planet’s hazy horizon.

* * *

 

** exec SilentRunning **

** { **

** xmt.suspend(true) **

** core.coolantflush **

** runninglights.rgb(0,0,0) **

** shield.power(“10%”) **

** shield.mod(radardiff,lsrdiff,opticdiff) **

** mechcontrol.dampsnd **

** } **

** //Reducing shield power will impair ship’s aerodynamic field, do NOT enable profile during atmospheric entry **


End file.
